Jerry McCrea/The Star-LedgerView of a money counter and paper shredder, part of a lot of electronic items items seized during a criminal investigation by the Hudson County Prosecutor's office and now being offered up at auction at Caspert Management Co. Inc., Auctioneers and Appraisers in South Hackensack.

“We’re in the going-out-of-business business,” is how Mitchell Caspert puts it.

This Saturday’s auction, however, wasn’t brought about by a sagging economy, but by the Hudson County Prosecutor’s office.

When detectives recently broke up four or five identity theft rings, they were left with the trappings of those criminal enterprises.

Crime’s tools of the trade used to be crowbars and lockpicks.

Look around Caspert’s South Hackensack warehouse, and you’ll see all the tools a modern thief needs: laptops, cellphones, shredders, and a cash-counting machine to tally the profits.

The sale also includes some of the bling forfeited by the defendants — such as a diamond-covered whistle — as well as goods used in the legit businesses used as a cover.

In one case, the ring’s “front” was a Jersey City perfume shop — which explains the cases of Givenchy and Gucci designer fragrances on the auction list.

Guy Gregory, acting Hudson County prosecutor, said identity thieves typically acquire a consumer’s credit card information, then use it to buy electronics that can be resold quickly. When that hacked card is tapped out, they move onto the next card.

Once the ring is caught, the defrauded credit card company usually has no interest in taking possession of the ill-gotten gains.

Some of the forfeited goods — cars, for example — are put to use by law enforcement. Anything else is auctioned off.

At Caspert’s, which averages an auction a week, items are offered for sale “as-is, where-is”:

• The pristine flat-screen TVs with their remote controls still wrapped in plastic — probably purchased by the crooks for resale.

• The grimy laptops that look like they’ve been through the mill — probably used in the theft operation. (Many of these will be purchased by techies scavenging for parts, Caspert said.)

This sale is unusual because it originally included boxes of high-end perfumes by Burberry, Calvin Klein, Gucci and Ralph Lauren — all looking quite out of a place in an industrial warehouse.

That assumes it is perfume, of course. After all, the perfume store itself was a front for the back office used by identity theft ring.

“Whether it’s real or not, I can’t tell you,” Gregory said. “It could be a bottle of water,” said Caspert. “It could be a bottle of air.”

In the end, the prosecutor’s office decided to withdraw the perfume from this auction until it could be determined it wasn’t counterfeit.

Also for sale are about a dozen pieces of jewelry, including watches by Movado and Cartier, gold and diamond necklaces, earrings and rings. They were forfeited in earlier narcotics cases.

Then there is that diamond-encrusted whistle — visible on the auction house’s website, www.caspert.com.

By law, proceeds from the auction go into the Law Enforcement Trust Fund. Authorities can use that money to buy crime-fighting equipment, or for youth and educational programs. They cannot use it for salaries or routine expenses.

As in businesses everywhere, prices are depressed theese days. Customers used to buy items for resale on either eBay or at flea markets, Caspert said. In a recession, however, their appetite for even that level of risk has diminished. “Now, we find they only buy if they need it,” he said.